Are we raising our children to be frightened?

I was recently in the airport waiting to fly home when I heard a mother yell at her daughter, who was about 5 years old, "don't wander away or you will get snatched (kidnapped), kids get snatched all the time you know". The child had moved about 2 metres away from her mother and the comments really grated on me. Maybe we have always invoked the bogeyman to get our children to do what we want them to - but I am not sure it is either effective or appropriate.

Apart from this not being true (kids getting snatched all the time that is) - it did make me think about how much we as a society focus on fear. This is particularly important for us in Victoria after the tragic bushfires of 7 February this year.

With the experts telling us that climate change means we can expect more extreme weather events in the future, there is the very real possibility that we may have a public loss of confidence in the bush. If this leads to even more people staying at home on their PlayStation's or Nintendo instead of getting outside then I think the long term consequences will far outweigh the actual risk of being outdoors in nature.

To respond to this heightened anxiety we will need to focus on the benefits that come from being involved in outdoor programs, while at the same time being able to demonstrate that as an industry we have responded to the changing environment and that we have taken all reasonable steps to ensure our programs are safe and that we have reviewed and revised our programs accordingly.